Chandwa, a village in Bihar of over 5,000 people, distributed sweets, played Holi and got little girls to dance to drumbeats. The village, part of the Ara Municipal Corporation, is a Brahmin dominated one but the Dalits here say the father-daughter duo of Jagjivan Ram and Meira Kumar have made them proud. While Jagjivan Ram was their “Chandwa ke chand”, Kumar, they say, is now “Chandwa ki chandni”.

Jagjivan Ram’s two-storeyed house, painted yellow and white and with a sloping roof, is a landmark in Ara. The house, built in 1976, is under lock, except for two rooms where caretaker Kunwar Dayal Ram and son Ajay live. Kunwar Dayal is a frail old man whose ears are failing him but he has gathered enough to know that Meira Kumar has earned a big post—“perhaps bigger than a mantri’s”. Peeping through the window of one of the locked rooms, we saw a time-weathered oil painting of Jagjivan Ram.

Meira Kumar spent much of her childhood in Patna and Delhi and the elders of Chandwa know her as Jagjivan Babu’s little girl who would come here during her holidays. Sarvanand Tiwari, who lives next to Jagjivan Ram’s house, says, “It’s only after Babuji’s (Jagjvan Ram) death in 1986 that Meira Kumar started visiting us regularly. Now she comes at least twice a year.”

One of those annual visits is on July 7, the death anniversary of Jagjivan Ram, when Kumar visits Chandwa, spends a few hours with the villagers and pays homage at her father’s memorial.

“She speaks to us about carrying forward the legacy of her Babuji. Now that she has become Speaker, she has come out Jagjivan Ram’s shadow,” says Ashok Yadav, a villager. Yadav shows us Meira Kumar’s photograph from his personal collection—one with Kumar, her daughter and mother Indrani Devi.

Dipak Babu Chamar, who calls Meira Kumar his mausi (mother’s sister), says his family has had a long association with Meira Kumar’s. “I have been part of her election campaigns. My mother Sharda shares a great rapport with mausi,” says Dipak, who calls himself a “social worker”. “Twenty years ago, who would have imagined a Dalit woman as Speaker,” he asks proudly.

But Bodhram, Kumar’s neighbour, says she hasn’t done much for the village. “The only big moment Chandwa has had was when Rajiv Gandhi came to attend Babu Jagjivan Ram’s last rites. Otherwise, we don’t have much to show for our association with Babuji and his daughter,” says Bodhram, hoping Kumar’s elevation as Speaker will give the village better roads, better schools and vocational training centres.